I have a small Dock
August 26th, 2009
Grace Smith has been running an insightful series on her blog revealing the Docks of a number of graphic and web designers. We all get curious about how others use their computers, methods of organisation, workflows and the applications they use.
One thing that surprises me is the number of apps many people keep in their Dock. For me, as a general rule, I keep those apps that I drag files to in order to open in with that application, for instance dragging a JPG to Photoshop or movie file to VLC. For most, I use Quicksilver, which has become like second nature to me in order to open the majority of apps.
My Dock sits hidden, minimal magnification, stretching to rarely more than just over 600px.
Finder – It’s there and it looks pretty, though I only use it in emergencies. I have a keysboard shortcut set up via Quicksilver to open Finder and a couple of other folders I use often.
Firefox - I love this browser, I have my various little plugins and know how it works, especially the session manager. Right now I have 81 tabs open in 4 windows. Far too much, I know. To be sorted, as I say so often.
Safari – I use this mostly for watching videos (youtube and the like), for Firefox is often too slow for that with the number of tabs I have running. In general though I don’t like it.
iTunes – I don’t like iTunes much either, but it’s a must really.
Spotify - Spotify makes me happy. Music makes me happy.
Photoshop – For many of my processing needs.
Lightroom – For my photo organising and processing needs.
VLC – For watching movies (just wish the pause/play/back/forward buttons on mac didn’t control it as has happened in the last version).
Flickr Uploadr – Uploading to flickr, which I do less and less these days…
Mailplane – Great little Gmail simulation app.
Twhirl – No one else likes it, but I can’t stand the other Twitter clients. Can anyone tell me definitively if Twhirl is still being supported/developed/updated? Since the launch of Seesmic Desktop I’ve gotten the feeling it isn’t but unsure.
Lastfm - Having been tracking my listening habits since March 2003, I’m not going to stop now.
Adium – For logging onto MSN, GoogleTalk and AIM.
Folder – Applications. Displayed as a list.
Trash – Kept empty.
That makes 15. Surely 48, as displayed by Khoi Vinh is unnecessary.
My main question to you is not what apps you use, but how many icons you have in your Dock?
